Just a note that if anyone is interested in figuring out whether or not alternative batteries exist or can be sourced by the community, the topic below is where most of that discussion is happening. Testing of potential existing alternative batteries appears to be still ongoing, and I’m not sure how people are going to test for thermal safety - so (as with everything on public forums) there’s no guarantee that mentioned options will actually work.
A post was merged into an existing topic: 
Generic battery to replace FP1 battery (shorter, 1,800mAh)
Thank you for the link. I read the article. It is interesting that they are talking about economic reality. When I turn on my fairphone it says: “Start a movement” I thought that fairphone would start a movement against some socalled “economic reality”. I know that they are competing with much bigger companies and no doubt they should earn money with the product to also paying the people at fairphone well. But we have also to keep in mind that they have some economic advantages. They had customers who were ready to finance them by crowdfunding. They have customers who are ready to pay a higher price for the product then they had to pay for another comparable product. They had customers who did not cancel the order when the delivery was postponed again and again. That’s just also an economic advantage. Now we learn that the support ends but they have learned a lot. But it was not communicated at the beginning: “we might only provide a short time support this time but we will learn for the future”. Instead of this everyting was either “amazing” or “we work hard in order to…” And now, once the battary is broken the phone will be useless
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Anyway, speaking for myself: although I was very enthousiastic about this ‘movement’, I was willing to pay quite a lot of money for what the FP1 offered, as well as willing to wait a long time for delivery, but ‘thanks’ to this premature abandoning this will also be my last FP.
What also struck me was the (apparently) half harted effort to upgrade the firmware: although many testers say it’s working reasonably well, there have only been produced three alpha versions; not even a beta has been released. At least a beta should have been offered, and also maintained (with security fixes).
Bah…
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There must be some major roadblocks or a very hard internal deadline on that endeavor that snapped. I find the communications in that regard quite weak to. Maybe we can pressure them and @Douwe to tell as more, but I suspect he can’t.
It’s a business decision at the end. It’s hard for everybody owning a phone, but they always said they want to change the industry from within. There is no use to a company Fairphone that is not profitable.
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Wheter it’s called an alpha or beta version is just a naming decision. You can see for yourself what issues the latest version has and whether you consider it worth upgrading anyway:
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That is not correct: there are distinct differences between alpha and beta software.
In layman’s terms: alpha is for partial testing only (for testing of some isolated functionality) while beta is for testing the software as a complete (more or less working) version.
And as I said: at this stage I would have expected (at least) a beta version that would be maintained (i.e. regurarly updated with security fixes).
But even that little bit of support for my FP isn’t there.
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Just found an older article at “heise” about the economic situation at fairphone:
“Ich wollte Teil des Systems werden, um es zu ändern, aber dann fing das System an, mein Leben zu diktieren.”
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I just read the article linked to by @mpcww as well as the one about van Abel’s burn out and have to say I had no idea how much work is going on behind the curtains. You guys need to work on your communication, but then again, maybe sharing bad news would be honest but counterproductive to the project as a whole, with people saying “This reads as though they are in some crisis, should I really buy their phone?”
In the end, I have no idea. All I want to say is that it was a great decision of mine to help crowdfund FP1 and watch the company grow, I am also thankful I’m not under the constant pressure to succeed like you are.
@Douwe, if you’re reading this: Great work, maybe unsatisfactory communication, but don’t let the people get you who fail to see the bigger picture and get hung up on a software release being called “alpha 3” instead of “beta 1”.
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You got me wrong:
1- Wrong naming gives wrong ideas.
2- Main point is the fact that the experimental firmware isn’t being updated with security fixes either, which was the main reason for planning the update in the first place.
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I have absolutely no intention of turning this into a discussion, as these have shown to exhaust me, just some words to explain:
I did not intend to step on your toes, you are right with what you said. However, it has always been my position - all the more since reading the article above - that we as a community know too little about what is going on, about the difficulties, the financial reasoning, the limited resources and the resulting prioritization to say things like “FP betrayed my trust”. This is why I said that better communication, also of setbacks, also of small news, and if it is just 140 chars on twitter, would be appreciated.
FP1 development has been halted, so whether it’s called alpha or beta or Untitled (36) makes no difference. If they had the resources to continue develpment, I am convinced they would do so. But maybe the harsh truth is that investing the manpower necessary for that into software development for FP2 serves the company (and all of us, in the end) better. My point is that we don’t know enough to sit here on a high horse and complain. I have never been a fan of forming an opinion without knowing all the facts.
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Wait - of course we are allowed to complain - because we bought this product - or did you got your FP1 for free? A customer has his rights and if the supplier can’t fulfill what he sold with his product, customer can and must complain.
And the point of missing information: It’s really not the fault of the customers if the supplier don’t give enough information to see what is going on.
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Consumer rights are a powerful thing. If you think Fairphone has violated yours, you should complain; with a consumer rights organization or the authorities.
I’d love to hear if you are really concerned about consumer rights and are taking steps to protect them. Which rights do you think have been violated (some links to articles would be great!) and which parts of consumer law we could use to show Fairphone that are wrong?
Complaining here in the forum is good to let of some steam and bring the mood down, but if you are concerned about your rights: you will find very little here that will help you to protect them.
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I just looked up and found that the last software update for the FP1 is nearly two years ago.
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Yes, that is really sad!
I do not understand, why they do not publish the 4.4.2 beta version to everybody and explain the problems.
The beta is much more secure…
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[quote=“Johannes_Rohr, post:175, topic:30482”]
I just looked up and found that the last software update for the FP1 is nearly two years ago.[/quote]Support is not limited to software updates.
I’m curious, is it not unfulfilling to sustain a bitter state of mind over an extended period of time?
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@Johannes_Rohr: @Douwe was specifically talking about spare parts in that sentence.
@uudddu they did publish the alpha versions of #kitkat (as mentioned before):
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You are not counting #kitkat, which they did release, just didn’t call it a final release.
They did. Everybody can download it and all #software:fp1-beta-testing discussions are public.
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I’d this than rather Fairphone going bust - what kind of message would that send out about sustainability to both companies and consumers?
I must also agree with @Harald_bs - Fairphone needs to be more transparent about how things are going
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